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About Major Trends In Jewish Mysticism
Product Description A collection of lectures on the features of the movement of mysticism that began in antiquity and continues in Hasidism today. Review "A crucially vital work in the long history of Jewish esoteric spirituality. Aside from its intrinsic importance, the book's influence has been enormous, and is likely to continue all but indefinitely. As much as the stories and parables of Kafka, Scholem's work helped inaugurate Jewish gnosticism on our era." —Harold Bloom, Yale University "Over fifty years ago, Major Trends struck the scholarly world like a bombshell, marking the beginning of a new era. The book's unique combination of philological erudition, phenomenological penetration, and synthetic sweep not only wrought a revolution in Jewish studies but also established Jewish mysticism as a major phenomenon in the general history of religions." —R.J.Z. Weblowsky, Hebrew University "As the Zohar is the canonical text of the Kabbalah, so, in a sense, is Scholem's Major Trends the canonical modern work on the nature and history of Jewish mysticism. For a sophisticated understanding, not only of the dynamics of Jewish mysticism, but of the exquisite complexities of Jewish history and tradition, Major Trends is a major port of entry through which one must pass." —Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, Columbia University From the Inside Flap A collection of lectures on the features of the movement of mysticism that began in antiquity and continues in Hasidism today. From the Back Cover Gershom Scholem who is the author of Jewish Mysticism was a professor of Jewish mysticism at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem until his death in 1982. The purpose of these lectures. What is mysticism? The paradoxical nature of mystical experience. Mysticism is an historical phenomenon. About the Author GERSHOM SCHOLEM was professor of Jewish mysticism at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem until his death in 1982. He is also the author of The Messianic Idea in Judaism, On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism, On the Mystical Shape of the Godhead and Zohar. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. First Lecture GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF JEWISH MYSTICISM I It is the purpose of these lectures to describe and to analyse some of the major trends in Jewish mysticism. I cannot of course hope to deal comprehensively in a few hours with a subject so vast and at the same time so intricate as the whole sweep and whirl of the mystical stream, as it runs its course through the movements which are known to the history of Jewish religion under the names of Kabbalah and Hasidism. Probably all of you have heard something about these aspects of Hewish religion. Their significance has been a matter of much dispute among Jewish scholars. Opinion has changed several times; it has fluctuated between the extremes of hostile criticism and condemnation on the one hand, and enthusiastic praise and defense on the other. It has not, however, greatly advanced our knowledge of what may be called the real nature of mystical lore, nor has it enabled us to form an unbiased judgment as to the part this lore has played and continues to play in Jewish history, or as to its importance for a true understanding of Judaism. It is only fair to add that the exposition of Jewish mysticism, or that part of it which has so far been publicly discussed, abounds in misunderstandings and consequent misrepresentations of the subject matter under discussion. The great Jewish scholars of the past century whose conception of Jewish history is still dominant in our days, men like Graetz, Zunz, Geiger, Luzzatto and Steinschneider, had little sympathy—to put it mildly—for the Kabbalah. At once strange and repellent, it epitomized everything that was opposed to their own ideas and to the outlook what they hoped to make predominant in modern Judiasm. Darkly it stood in their path, the ally of forces and tendencies in whose rejection pride was taken by a Jewry which, in
